Jason Unger

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There are just some blogs I hate reading. Specifically, ones written by people who write like

• they have authority, but don't.
• they're experienced, but aren't.
• they've perfected the system, but haven't.

Somehow, the blogosphere has turned in to a world where people have to find a niche and they have to be a leading voice in it, even if they come off as complete phonies.

Don't waste your time. It's not worth it. I've tried.

You can learn all you want about a particular subject, re-package and relay that information to an audience, but if there isn't a piece of you in it, you're unlikely to succeed.

Are You Opening Up to Your Readers?

While the Internet is truly an amazing way to learn, it's even better at connecting with people.

Blogging gives you a way to share your stories with a community of readers. It gives you a way to connect with people across the world. And it gives you the opportunity to show a different side of your personality.

There are a number of things I've written in this blog and others that I don't normally share offline. It's not because of any particular reason — it's just that the medium allows for you to organize, manage, and edit your thoughts.

My goal here is to share my experiences, pass along what I've learned, and interact with you. I won't sit here and tell you that you should do the same, but you at least need to be honest with yourself — and your readers.

You can't truly connect with your readers if you are not sharing your experiences in your posts. If you have no experiences or thoughts, what are you writing for?

Your blog needs you, not just your words.

In a world of facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the rest, it's increasingly likely that you'll be living your online life on someone else's Web site.

So if you're looking to keep in touch with the people in each of these communities, you need to get involved.

But at what expense? Are you becoming someone else's user-generated content?

The new blog design (RSS readers click through), Agregado from the amazing folks at Smashing Magazine, looks to balance those two worlds: your blog and the greater online community.

On the homepage, you'll see my Twitter, del.icio.us and flickr updates, with links to stories from the Online Savings Blog and I Share Funny Stuff. On every other page of the site, you'll see my latest Twitter status.

It's appropriately called my 'lifestream' — and it's open to anyone who visits the blog. Now, you don't have to subscribe to my Friendfeed or check out my facebook News Feed to see what's going on.

Thanks for being a friend.

The world 'blog' is filled with expectations … but they're totally different, depending on who you are.

At work, we've been discussing the merit of adding a 'blog' to the cepro.com and what exactly it entails.

The editors have been asking for one, but it always leads back to these questions:

• does that mean a place to express opinions?
• is it just a rollup of one author's posts?
• are they short quips and thoughts about a particular topic?

What exactly is a 'blog'?

The 'Official' Definition

Here's what Wikipedia says about blogs:

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic.

Honestly, this definition means nothing to me. If a blog functions as everything, then it is absolutely nothing.

We already post stories in reverse chronological. Many of our stories express opinions. Some of them are based on reports in other publications.

So do we already have a blog?

Does it Really Matter?

In the old media world, the word 'blog' matters. If all of these bloggers are getting tons of traffic to their sites while you're cutting staff, it must be because you don't have a blog.

WRONG.

A blog is not going to save your business. Embracing the culture and connectedness of the Internet will.

But back to the actual word. If blog doesn't mean anything, why use it?

Totally legitimate question. But the response should be: if the word blog doesn't mean anything, why not use it?

The Moral of the Story

The takeaway here?

It's not the word that matters. It's what you do with it.

Automating your life is easier than you think.

My finances are on autopilot — and it's been the best thing ever.

Not only does it save you boatloads of time, but it's actually pretty comforting.

So how do you automate the biggest time waster in your life — Facebook? It's easier than you think.

Here are 5 ways to automate your Facebook experience.

Import Blog Posts as Notes

Every one of your blog posts can automatically be imported into your profile — easily. In Facebook:

• Click on "Notes" on your left-hand Applications navigation.
• On the right-hand nav, click on "Import a blog" under Notes Settings
• Enter your blog URL, check off box, and click "Start Importing"
• Verify your RSS feed is appearing correctly, and "Confirm Import"

Ta-da! Your blog posts are now automatically being imported into Facebook.

Subscribe to Friend Updates via RSS

Find what your friends are doing by getting their status updates delivered to you via RSS.

On facebook.com/friends, click on "Friends' Status Feed" in the right-hand column.

Subscribe to the feed in your favorite RSS reader (I recommend Firefox's Live Bookmarks, since there isn't anything more to read than the one-line status).

Sync Your Twitter and Status

Why update your Facebook status if you're using Twitter to do essentially the same thing?

TwitterSync automatically posts your latest Tweets as your status. You can add a verb like "tweets," or "is twittering," "is," etc. before the update, or leave it completely blank.

The official Twitter app also syncs your status and tweets, but (until recently) automatically adds "is twittering" before posting your status.

Add Flickr, Digg, del.icio.us to your News Feed

Don't waste your time uploading your pictures, bookmarks and more to a specific service and to Facebook — automatically import them into your Mini-Feed.

On your profile page, under the Mini-Feed header, click "Import." This will allow you to import items from

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• Flickr
• Picasa
• Yelp

Share Stories with Shareaholic

Instead of heading to Facebook to post links or stories on your profile, use Shareaholic.

The Firefox plugin lets you share any Web page on Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Mixx and more without leaving the actual page.

What did I miss? How are you automating your Facebook experience?

As a blogger of more than one site (the one you're currently surfing as well as the Online Savings Blog, there comes a point where I have to look at the return on investment of posting at either site.

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